The Situation in the Ukraine. #24

Ukrops begin evacuating civilians from Marinka. This happened last year just before the fighting there and it was messages from residents about being evacuated that gave first indication that something was about to happen. Probably now worth looking at Dokuchaevsk to see what may happen there. http://dan-news.info/defence/vsu-nachali-evakuaciyu-zhitelej-marinki-v-xode-podgotovki-nastupleniya-na-zapade-donecka.html

There is also a part of the report that briefly says that Defence Ministry of DNR say that VSN reserves are moving to the front on west side of Donetsk.

auslander wrote:Get ready for more sanctions and these will hurt. 404 attacking and getting their asses handed to them on a platter will again be because hordes of Russian troops and a thousand tanks slipped across the border, destroyed the 404 army and slipped back across the border, all in one night and no one saw them.

Agreed on everything except sanctions, they are barely keeping current ones in place and now with VKS working the Syria ukrops will be scorched with gusto.

I hope I am wrong but I don't think so. They are not going to stop and their slaves in Europe will continue to gratify them orally and keep their sanctions going for as long as Foggy Bottom wants.

This time I hope the boys are not forced to stop for a day to allow the golden pheasants to leave again. We need lots of prisoners including numbers of foreigners. From very close eyes on by someone close to us there are Poles, still and again, and 'English speakers using American English' in close proximity to the front lines. Skin color was not mentioned, this from two weeks ago.

Concerning the Donetsk-Gorlovka road, it is to all intents and purposes closed. Not surprising as its well within orc small arms for well over a year.

One needs to keep a close eye on Svitlodars'k. Large orc forces are there and all one has to do is look at the map and understand what they will possibly do. From the forces arrayed it looks like Donetsk City proper and Gorlovka will be enveloped in a double cauldron. I think the fighting around Vasynovata is a feint unless it shows sudden and unexpected success/progress.

auslander wrote:One needs to keep a close eye on Svitlodars'k. Large orc forces are there and all one has to do is look at the map and understand what they will possibly do. From the forces arrayed it looks like Donetsk City proper and Gorlovka will be enveloped in a double cauldron. I think the fighting around Vasynovata is a feint unless it shows sudden and unexpected success/progress.

That's been the wet dream of the Banderatards since 2014. But they should worry about being caught in cauldrons themselves.

the NAf need to get their heavy stuff to the front lines ASAP the HaHols are obviously close to all out attack

Godric wrote:the NAf need to get their heavy stuff to the front lines ASAP the HaHols are obviously close to all out attack

And the NATO propaganda chorus will start up with the "Russia broke the Minsk II accords" diarrhea. Of course, the fact that the
key provisions of Minsk II were never implemented by the Banderastani regime will be systematically ignored. So I agree, both Russia
and the NAF need to be ready to hit back hard. There is no point maintaining Minsk II and NATO media consumers can eat whatever
shit they savour the most on any given day from their precious media. Diplomacy and reason have no place in the current milieu,
only force and power can achieve something.

kvs wrote:

Godric wrote:the NAf need to get their heavy stuff to the front lines ASAP the HaHols are obviously close to all out attack

And the NATO propaganda chorus will start up with the "Russia broke the Minsk II accords" diarrhea.  Of course, the fact that the
key provisions of Minsk II were never implemented by the Banderastani regime will be systematically ignored.   So I agree, both Russia
and the NAF need to be ready to hit back hard.   There is no point maintaining Minsk II and NATO media consumers can eat whatever
shit they savour the most on any given day from their precious media.   Diplomacy and reason have no place in the current milieu,
only force and power can achieve something.

Time for NAF to take Zaporizhia, this way they can control Motor Sich, and next take over Dnipropetrovsk, and control Yuzhmash, so this way Novorossiya will have a well-rounded aerospace industry, and with the help form Russia, those factories can shake off it's Banderasite rust.

There is an appraisal of what happens and a wider picture on Cassad, not by Rozhin but a joint effort by two other commentators. Most of what it covers is not new, and some, about Khodakovsky, is washing dirty linen in public and I see no reason to translate large chunks of the article. What is of more interest is the wider picture and I will summarise what it says.

It is recognized that Kremlin wants a frozen conflict, but as the saying goes, "It takes two to tango", and Kiev does not want a frozen conflict, it needs the problem of Donbass to go as soon as possible. Donbass needs stability in order to continue with state building and it needs to keep hold of front line industrial areas, Kiev needs to make unusable these industrial areas in order to make it difficult to create a stable state. For a frozen conflict to be sustainable it needs stability in Donbass, and this is not present at the moment, therefore it may be necessary for further large scale military conflict in order to push ukrops back from Donetsk and Gorlovka, something I have advocated since the beginning of last year. So even if the intermediate result is a frozen conflict for an undefined period of time, the conditions for stability must first be met, therefore it is possible that an offensive will happen, but launched by VSN with aims probably limited to securing Donetsk and surrounding areas from this constant attack, not any march on Kiev, or even Mariupol or Slavyansk. This will stop the bombardments on major conurbations and infrastruture and allow Donetsk more freedom to grow. In Lugansk the situation is rather different and not so critical.

I will suggest that a possible future front line in DNR will be along the line West to North from Kurakhovo - Novogrodovka - Konstantinovka - Artemovsk and then across to LNR at Popasnaya. I would guess that an advance would also take place to push ukrops back from Dokuchaevsk and under Donetsk. I don't necessarily say that all, or any of those cities will be taken, but the front may not be far short of them. But it's all speculation. And again, IF any offensive does happen, then despite what any aims are, plans tend to collapse with first contact with enemy and anything may happen. I have a gut feeling that action has not taken place already because of the possibility of rapid and total Kiev collapse, and while welcome, will in fact create more problems for Kremlin than solve them at this time.

http://cassad.net/analitika/25262-voenekpert-chernyy-mart-dobassa.html

Khepesh wrote:There is an appraisal of what happens and a wider picture on Cassad, not by Rozhin but a joint effort by two other commentators. Most of what it covers is not new, and some, about Khodakovsky, is washing dirty linen in public and I see no reason to translate large chunks of the article. What is of more interest is the wider picture and I will summarise what it says.

It is recognized that Kremlin wants a frozen conflict, but as the saying goes, "It takes two to tango", and Kiev does not want a frozen conflict, it needs the problem of Donbass to go as soon as possible. Donbass needs stability in order to continue with state building and it needs to keep hold of front line industrial areas, Kiev needs to make unusable these industrial areas in order to make it difficult to create a stable state. For a frozen conflict to be sustainable it needs stability in Donbass, and this is not present at the moment, therefore it may be necessary for further large scale military conflict in order to push ukrops back from Donetsk and Gorlovka, something I have advocated since the beginning of last year. So even if the intermediate result is a frozen conflict for an undefined period of time, the conditions for stability must first be met, therefore it is possible that an offensive will happen, but launched by VSN with aims probably limited to securing Donetsk and surrounding areas from this constant attack, not any march on Kiev, or even Mariupol or Slavyansk. This will stop the bombardments on major conurbations and infrastruture and allow Donetsk more freedom to grow. In Lugansk the situation is rather different and not so critical.

I will suggest that a possible future front line in DNR will be along the line north to south from Kurakhovo - Novogrodovka - Konstantinovka - Artemovsk and then across to LNR at Popasnaya. I would guess that an advance would also take place to push ukrops back from Dokuchaevsk and under Donetsk. I don't necessarily say that all, or any of those cities will be taken, but the front may not be far short of them. But it's all speculation. And again, IF any offensive does happen, then despite what any aims are, plans tend to collapse with first contact with enemy and anything may happen. I have a gut feeling that action has not taken place already because of the possibility of rapid and total Kiev collapse, and while welcome, will in fact create more problems for Kremlin than solve them at this time.

http://cassad.net/analitika/25262-voenekpert-chernyy-mart-dobassa.html

The planners in the Kremlin better be careful not to overthink this. They should keep it simple and thus more achievable. Having NAF push back the
Banderastani regime suppression forces farther west should have been the objective in early 2014 regardless of its impact on Khuyiv. Both Minsk accords
were a big mistake. They were implemented way too early and Russia should have let the NAF liberate all of Donetsk and Lugansk Oblasts first.

kvs wrote:
The planners in the Kremlin better be careful not to overthink this.   They should keep it simple and thus more achievable.   Having NAF push back the
Banderastani regime suppression forces farther west should have been the objective in early 2014 regardless of its impact on Khuyiv.   Both Minsk accords
were a big mistake.   They were implemented way too early and Russia should have let the NAF liberate all of Donetsk and Lugansk Oblasts first.  

I agree and I think various comments appearing, even Basurin briefings, are aimed at saying something is going to happen, but don't get over excited. A few days ago some curious info was disseminated talking about a 35km limit of advance that may be at least secretly acceptable to the West, lots of shouting of course, but soon all forgotten. The cities I mentioned are all approximately 35km from VSN front lines around that quadrant of the front, some closer, some a little further away.

kvs wrote:

Godric wrote:the NAf need to get their heavy stuff to the front lines ASAP the HaHols are obviously close to all out attack

And the NATO propaganda chorus will start up with the "Russia broke the Minsk II accords" diarrhea.  Of course, the fact that the
key provisions of Minsk II were never implemented by the Banderastani regime will be systematically ignored.   So I agree, both Russia
and the NAF need to be ready to hit back hard.   There is no point maintaining Minsk II and NATO media consumers can eat whatever
shit they savour the most on any given day from their precious media.   Diplomacy and reason have no place in the current milieu,
only force and power can achieve something.

Russia and the NAF are damned if they do or damned if they don't react in Nato's eyes .... the defence of the people should always be paramount for the NAF and RF and if the HaHols are mad enough to launch a full scale attack on NAF forces that the NAF does not stop until the whole of NovoRossiya is liberated

35km sound good...for the first phase....

Kiev collapse will not harm Russia's plans. Partitioning 404 into easily manageable parts will benefit Russia. Yes NATO will be tempted to swoop in but everyone knows that Russia is capable of much greater swooping in of her own in that case. And that it is willing to push much further than NATO.

I just discovered Donetsk has a new info site in english. I only knew Novorussia today

Much improved and with translated briefings from Basurin

https://dninews.com/

I don't know, but I have a feeling, that 404 will not go in full attack, until they change or throw the current government and than install more hard core nazi regime. After that, there will for sure start new war and there will be no Minsk 3. I'm sure US will do everything to install hard core nazis in Kiev for two reasons. First is, that the West, US and EU, doesn't want Ukraine in their club as it is a total sh*thole and they don't want to spend any cent on Ukraine to live them. They don't need them. The second reason is, that sanctions against Russia doesn't work as they want and Russia is too successful in Syria, so they want to start a new war in Novorussia, that Russia will have to intervene in Ukraine and occupy whole Ukraine, which will drain all Russian resources.

When war will start again, Novorussian army have to defeat 404 army, but liberate only Novorussian territories, all the rest they must leave alone and let them be their own 404 s**thole. Without Kiev, Novorussian republics will quite quickly renovate their economy, specially if larger parts will be liberated without heavy destruction. What will the rest of 404 do than is their problem. Russia must leave them alone and US will not care for them either as well as EU, so they will be on their own with high debts and destroyed economy.

PapaDragon wrote:Kiev collapse will not harm Russia's plans.

Kremlin's plans seems to be based on Minsk II which require Kiev.

PapaDragon wrote:Partitioning 404 into easily manageable parts will benefit Russia.

Where is the local support for that?

PapaDragon wrote:Yes NATO will be tempted to swoop in but everyone knows that Russia is capable of much greater swooping in of her own in that case. And that it is willing to push much further than NATO.

The question is: And then what?

ExBeobachter1987 wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:Kiev collapse will not harm Russia's plans.

Kremlin's plans seems to be based on Minsk II which require Kiev.

PapaDragon wrote:Partitioning 404 into easily manageable parts will benefit Russia.

Where is the local support for that?

PapaDragon wrote:Yes NATO will be tempted to swoop in but everyone knows that Russia is capable of much greater swooping in of her own in that case. And that it is willing to push much further than NATO.

The question is: And then what?

1) Minsk II is on it's way out if you haven't been paying attention. Russia's plans OTOH are still a go.

2) Why would they need local support outside Novorossia? Who even gives a sh*t what some nazi lapdogs think? Just find some local goons, give them guns and some petty cash and let them do the dirty work of keeping sheep in line and subservient.

In the meantime focus on upgrading and improving lives of people in Novorossia. Ukrops would be first to agree that some humans are more valuable than others, let them live by their principals I say...

3) Then what? Supervise the place from the air, occasionally blow up some scum as an example and let local goons earn their keep. This is not particle physics, whole thing is pretty simple.

How interesting to see that the position held by numbers of people, me included, that something should be done, now seems to be coming into vogue more widely.....

The Cassad article I commented on was in fact an appraisal seen from perspective, essentially, of Kremlin of what could be possible and maybe should happen in these times of "partners" and not upsetting Washington too much. Personally I believe that an advance at least as far as the Dnepr to the west and Kharkov to the north should have happened in September 2014, and I will go further and say that Ukraine should have been invaded to restore order in May 2014, or even earlier, and certainly before the ATO began in June.

Since Basurin's morning briefing when he said the level of fighting overnight was low, it seems that it all started again and there are reports of very heavy artillery bombardments taking place.

On the video of VSN artillery firing from Shakter stadium. It has been pointed out that as the stadium is to the left of the direction the guns are facing and the park is to the right, they could not have been firing at Marinka, but only towards a north to northwest arc, which covers from Avdeevka to Enakievo. This implies that the video was not from about 23 Feb, but only in the last days. Irrelevant really, but shows action is taken. Also some of the reports today of Donetsk residents hearing loud firing, come from districts that are too far away from the front for them to possibly hear anything incoming except Tochka, so they hear the outgoing fire from VSN artillery.

Khepesh wrote:

Since Basurin's morning briefing when he said the level of fighting overnight was low, it seems that it all started again and there are reports of very heavy artillery bombardments taking place.

I have a question for those of you that know Russian. Somewhere in the Russian internet there must be eyewitness accounts from the front: what is really like?

Because I have seen the daily reports and find the numbers of shot absurdly low. It would seem that the ceasefire is in effect and both sides just stare at each other and occasionally somebody as a prank lets loose a burst of machinegun or lobs a pair of mortar bombs. What about snipers? rifle fire? No machine gun harassing fire? trench raids?

for example, I could believe the report from yesterday about Lugansk inactive sector, it it were for a single day, but that's the entire week!


https://dninews.com/article/lugansk-defense-situation-report-12032016

I am suspicious about how detailed the reports are, who in his right mind counts hits from a burst of an autocannon or an auto grenade launcher? It's at all possible?

Yesterday Basurin mentioned 384 "shellings". All right a "shelling" is a shot from any weapon above machinegun. But then he only details the bombardment on Yasinovataya, saying the enemy fired 200 bombs of 120mm y 82mm. (90 y 120 each).

Taking the medium mortars, a Soviet style battallion had a platoon of six mortars. In the latter case, those fired 20 bombs each, only three minutes of rapid fire and nothing for the rest of the day, I am to belive that they only fire a couple bombs per hour? That does not match with the reports intensity of the fighting. It's not just some platoon skirmishing, seems like an attack by an entire battallion.

And it doesn't tell us nothing about the rest of the "shellings" all along the front.

You talk about "very heavy artillery bombardments" but the report only talks about 40 mortar bombs.

https://dninews.com/article/ukrainian-gunmen-hurled-40-mortars-yasinovataya-checkpoint-dpr

Mortars are not artillery and forty bombs is not even heavy at all, though of course I wouldn't like being under it.

If that's all that happened, then we could talk about a truce, but then one wounders why Kiev is recruiting 40 years old and sick conscripts if they are not suffering losses? It cannot be that all the youth has deserted or fled!


So what I really want to know is:

it is the war over since Minsk 2? all that happens is a random shot here and there?

Or are the reports lying and there is a constant low level exchange of fire and a trickle of casualties every day just like in trench warfare during the world wars?

Are the Novorussian reports lies? are they making up numbers so they can pretend Minsk truce is being observed?

Or I am under the false assumption that the current situation is a reduced version of the trenches of the Western Front during World War I? It would be far less bloody and intense, but still, a few dozen casualties a day makes up for thousands after a year.

It just does not make sense, the "all quiet on the Donbass front" reports do not match the known attrition of Ukranian forces.

^ Too many of the eyewitness reports have rather colorful language to describe events, and to relate what is said will perhaps make the reports less believable, particulary to an Anglophone audience were descriptions of "The sky going dark" and "Earth flying ten meters into the air" or "The ground shaking like giants stamping" etc etc, are seen as a little too melodramatic, even if true. Also official news blackout and nobody should be saying anything. Much of official reports are lies, but sometimes truth inadvertantly escapes, such as Basurin making off hand comments about 152mm artillery and Grad coming down. The report about mortars is true, but really it is about what was happening overnight while the situation was described as being more quiet. Also both sides play down what happens and what they have at the front. Last week Basurin said about a company of ukrops tanks and other forces moving into Marinka, and Kiev said almost exactly the same about VSN moving into Petrovsky. Increase these "companies" to battalion or two on each side and it is closer to the truth.

Basurin has announced that the water filtration for Donetsk has been taken out by ukrops bombardments. This effects all Donetsk and surrounding areas, including those occupied by ukrops, such as Avdeevka and Krasnogorovka. Ukrops will probably now scream that "their" water has been cut by VSN in order to hide what is a war crime in denying water to civilians. For a while the issue of the water being cut to Donetsk has been discussed as possible red line.

Khepesh wrote:How interesting to see that the position held by numbers of people, me included, that something should be done, now seems to be coming into vogue more widely.....

The Cassad article I commented on was in fact an appraisal seen from perspective, essentially, of Kremlin of what could be possible and maybe should happen in these times of "partners" and not upsetting Washington too much. Personally I believe that an advance at least as far as the Dnepr to the west and Kharkov to the north should have happened in September 2014, and I will go further and say that Ukraine should have been invaded to restore order in May 2014, or even earlier, and certainly before the ATO began in June.

I agree with you, felt that at the time and expressed it over at good old mp.net. The problem was that if Russia had done that then the West's blowback on proven Russian 'aggression' could have been much worse than it has been, especially as the future at that time looked bright for Kiev. However, what the West thought then about the capabilities of Ukrainian politicians and military, in conjunction with their expectations of the results from their plans, turned out to be totally different from what happened in reality.

Now everyone in power in the West has the benefit of hindsight plus they have seen just what little the bunch of corrupt incompetents in Kiev have achieved even when judged against the limited plans of the time. Now they can see just how bad the situation they unleashed has become. I am sure that many of them just want the weeping sore of a problem to be taken off their hands as they have, as pointed out, so many other much more pressing demands on their time.

Depending on how Moscow plans for such a situation, a problem the VSN might face is having to stand up to a Kiev onslaught for a period of time (that might be short if there is prior agreement with NATO on a limited objective) before Russian 'peace keeping' forces, authorised by the UNSC, move in in force.

Even if they have to go it alone, anyone who thinks that Russia would find handling a second front on top of the Syria operation a problem, let alone more of a struggle than the West would have, needs in my view their head examining.

Khepesh wrote:

Basurin has announced that the water filtration for Donetsk has been taken out by ukrops bombardments. This effects all Donetsk and surrounding areas, including those occupied by ukrops, such as Avdeevka and Krasnogorovka. Ukrops will probably now scream that "their" water has been cut by VSN in order to hide what is a war crime in denying water to civilians. For a while the issue of the water being cut to Donetsk has been discussed as possible red line.

We now need Moscow's PR machine to move into top gear and accuse, at the top of its voice, Kiev of attacking civilians by deliberately cutting Donetsk's water supply.

Not just an almost silent and ignorable bleat out of Basurin.

If this happens we will know Moscow has been waiting for something like this to happen. Watch Sputnik. If not, its back to frustrating normal folks.

JohninMK wrote:

Khepesh wrote:

Basurin has announced that the water filtration for Donetsk has been taken out by ukrops bombardments. This effects all Donetsk and surrounding areas, including those occupied by ukrops, such as Avdeevka and Krasnogorovka. Ukrops will probably now scream that "their" water has been cut by VSN in order to hide what is a war crime in denying water to civilians. For a while the issue of the water being cut to Donetsk has been discussed as possible red line.

We now need Moscow's PR machine to move into top gear and accuse, at the top of its voice, Kiev of attacking civilians by deliberately cutting Donetsk's water supply.

Not just an almost silent and ignorable bleat out of Basurin.

If this happens we will know Moscow has been waiting for something like this to happen. Watch Sputnik. If not, its back to frustrating normal folks.

Its not TASS

Sunday, March 13, 2016 - 15:12

The Donetsk filtration plant has stopped its work as a result of continuous shelling by the Ukrainian security officers – the Vice-Commander of the DPR Defense Ministry Corps Eduard Basurin.

The Donetsk filtration plant was closed today at 10:50. According to him, the OSCE has refused to send a patrol there.

DONi News Agency


Along with today's update in English

https://dninews.com/article/donetsk-defense-situation-report-13032016